


When Night Has Come (And the Land is Dark)

by TellMeNoAgain



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Multi, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TellMeNoAgain/pseuds/TellMeNoAgain
Summary: It's over, everything's over.So why can't Rey sleep?Maybe she just needs a little help, from the two people who love her best.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 16
Kudos: 133





	When Night Has Come (And the Land is Dark)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheIntelligentHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/gifts).
  * Inspired by [When The Moon Is The Only Light You'll See](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22038409) by [TheIntelligentHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff). 



> Unbeta'd because it's just a drabble I wrote for TheIntelligentHufflepuff because I loved her fic so much! Definitely go read it!
> 
> I'm in the middle of a dark fic and I read TheIntelligentHufflepuff's fic and it was so sweet it healed up some really dark vibes I had going. Star Wars just makes me a better person, I guess, which is going to be a new tag at this point because IT'S SO TRUE.
> 
> Please have watched the movie, this is SPOILER CITY.

It’s hot, and muggy, and Rey is tired. She should be sleeping, she knows that. She twitches her way through the designated shuttleport area, and tries very hard not to wish for Leia. When she gets to her X-Wing, she climbs up the nose and leans back, looking up at the stars, and tries very hard not to wish for _Luke_.

There’s a million stars up there, stars she’s visited and stars she’s ignored, places she’ll be next week and places she’ll never see. It’s a whole universe of possibilities, and she has no idea why she feels tired, why she can only seem to focus on the things she can’t have and will never be.

She’s Emperor Palpatine’s _grand-daughter_. She’s got the blood of a monster in her veins.

And the kiss of a Skywalker on her lips.

She doesn’t, she doesn’t want it, that last gift, it doesn’t _erase_ anything. It doesn’t make Kylo any less of a nightmare that will haunt her the rest of her days. But she lays back on the nose of her X-wing, with her lightsaber strapped to her hip, and she decides, okay, she’s going to need to learn to balance it all out, or she’ll never sleep again. And _that’s_ going to severely limit her ability to stay connected and centered in the Force, she doesn’t care what the ghosts randomly flitting through her mind now tell her about her abilities. Jedi Masters might not need sleep to be Jedi Masters, but Rey Skywalker needs sleep to be _Rey_.

So she breathes, and finally sets her mind and grits her teeth and thinks of Ben.

She only saw him in flashes in the first years, trapped under all the heavy weight of Kylo, Kylo’s rage and pain, strangled out. Just flashes. 

Leia had never seen a connection as powerful as theirs, and Luke had never seen it, either. The two Masters had been twins, who could feel each other from across the galaxy, and they’d never been able to pass each other a credit chit through so much space, much less a lightsaber. Rey thinks of how often she watched Leia and Luke not talk from separate corners of the galaxy, and how easy it was for Kylo to pull her into his cat and mouse games, and shivers. She doesn’t think it’s ever happened before, the weight of all that history, the weight of their grandfathers, the weight of her parents, his parents, his uncle, pressed down onto them. Their families have laid waste to an entire universe. It pressurized them, pressurized what was between them, twisted it, twisted them.

She hates it still. She hated it when she was hiding from Kylo, when he could reach out and speak to her, at night, list all the ways he hated her, all the things he would do to her, all the ways he would _make_ her love him. He threw her off balance, so that every morning after, she would have to start all over again in re-centering herself in the light side of the Force, in giving up fear, in becoming a living flame of hope. It was good training for this new life, with no one to guide her but ghosts who talk to her at their whim and not her command, but she hates it still, for what it stole from her, for every early morning she spent breathing deeply instead of sleeping.

She never wanted that bond, never asked for it, hates it. Thinking of Ben, of how he looked, freed from the weight of Kylo, she’s surprised to find she’s so grateful for it, too.

She’d caught flickers of him, in their discussions, tried to draw him out, tried to strengthen him, because the bond worked both ways, and she could feel him there, could feel him panicked and confused and alone, so alone. Could feel him fighting, trapped in that head with Kylo. She felt the same way, trapped and alone against Kylo, she understood in ways that no one else in the whole of the trapped universe could understand. Everyone and everything was trapped with Kylo, but Rey and Ben more than most, because he was inside their _heads_ and under their _skins_.

So when his mother’s love reached out across the galaxy, and joined hers, strengthening Ben, pulling him up, telling him he could turn the tables and trap Kylo, giving him the strength to do it, she’d almost fallen over in relief. Ben pushed Kylo back, she felt it through their bond, their impossible bond that gave Kylo access to her brain and heart in ways she feared. Ben pushed Kylo back and squelched him, squashed him like the wamprat he was, broke free. She could feel him on the end of the bond, a beautiful boy, the beautiful boy his mother described, free and clean and willing to try so hard to make it all better again. Willing to live in hope.

She doesn’t remember dying.

But she does remember living again. 

She remembers Ben’s life, siphoned through her, already clean of Kylo, no trace of the monster inside. Maybe he’d kept those parts back, maybe it’s only that what was left after giving her everything good wasn’t enough for a whole human being, but the only life force she felt pass to her was clean, and joyful, and so full of love. He’d always loved her, which makes her want to be ill, here, in the hot humid night, thinking of all the ways Kylo twisted that love into a weapon.

She remembers the kiss, the _kiss_ , as his life passed to her, and how she’d been so happy for him, so happy to feel all of him, unchained, unfettered, beautiful, sliding across the bond and into her, under her skin, repairing the damage, wrapping her up in Ben, Ben, Ben, who loved her, without any trace of Kylo there to mar it.   
  
And abruptly, upon waking further, upon realizing what was happening, she’d been so sad, because she could feel the bond, the impossible bond, the bond built on the destructive capabilities of three generations of nightmares, draw to an end, in that kiss. She could feel the point where he might have lived, even then, might have lived, and she might have survived, and she _felt_ him _decide_ to give more. She’d kissed him back, in gratitude, because might have lived is not for sure survived, and she’s out here, on the nose of her X-wing, because he kissed her, and kept _giving_.

She’s crying, she realizes, and wipes her eyes.

“Rey?” asks a tentative voice in the darkness, and she sits up. It’s Finn, because of course it’s Finn, he’s been watching her with tentative eyes since about five minutes after their victory hug. Of course he’d follow her here. He’s worried. Everyone’s worried, she concedes. It’s not comfortable, having a Jedi Master who isn’t Leia, who smiles and walks lightly and still has something dark, unaddressed, hovering in her eyes. “Rey, you okay?”

“No,” she tells him, honestly.

He huffs, coming to stand at the side of the X-wing, and looks up. “Can I come up there and help?”

She loves that he thinks he _can_ , that he trusts that there’s something to make every situation better. She doesn’t think there’s anything he can do, but she nods and he starts climbing.

“Me too,” says another voice and Rey rolls her eyes because, yes, where Finn is these days, there’s his shadow, they’re completely ridiculous, the two generals. They’ve _always_ been ridiculous, but the Empire is falling to pieces and scattering and there are no rules and everyone is _surrendering_ or _plotting revenge_ and some people think Rey is a monster capable of eating Palpatine and washing him down with blue milk. They’re ridiculous together because they have always been, will always be, so she blows out a calming breath and nods to Poe, too.

Finn climbs up, climbs past her, and swings his legs over the left side, his back warm against her shoulder, as Poe climbs up and takes her right side in the same posture. They bookend her with silence and the ability to not look at each other as they talk. That’s… that’s a good tactic, she admits with a sigh.

“What happened, Rey? When you were out there, alone, with Kylo?” asks Finn, finally. _Which time?_ thinks Rey a little hysterically, because that's been her whole life, trapped alone with Kylo at the other end of the bond. Still, she knows what he's asking and it's not fair to him that it's exactly what she's avoiding answering right now.

“Oh,” she sighs, and then gives a short, shaky laugh. “He kissed me.”

“He did what now?” demands Poe, twisting to face her. She avoids his gaze, which, probably not the best move, he’s not going to give up, after all. “Rey, are you _okay?”_

“I’m, I’m sad,” she tells him. “Or, or not. It’s not, it’s confusing.”

“Because you loved him,” Finn says calmly, like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like it’s inevitable.

“No, God, no,” she laughs, and Poe hisses in relief, dropping back from his twist to rest back against her shoulder, knocking his head back against hers briefly. “Well, or only some part of him. I loved Ben, the goodness in him, he-” she breathes- “- he saved me, he loved me, all the time, in the bond, I could feel him, reaching out, when Kylo would-” words are so hard, when they’re the only two in the history of the universe to share the weight of that thing between them, the thing is hard to describe, “-when Kylo would take me, Ben would be there, too.”

Finn rubs his back against her shoulder and says, “Jedi stuff.”

“Yeah,” agrees Poe.

They sit for a moment before Finn says, “So you loved him, and he kissed you, and you’re sad.”

Rey hisses. “It’s not, it’s not _like_ that, though. Because I didn’t, we weren’t-”

“You tell people your name is Skywalker,” Poe points out.

“Yes,” says Rey defensively. She’s had to defend that a lot recently, but never to them. She thought they understood.

“Because you loved him, or loved part of him, whatever, he kissed you, and then he died?” asks Finn. On anybody else, the recitation of events would be an accusation. Finn just wants to understand.

Rey winces. “No, he, it’s more than that, he, Palpatine _killed_ me, and Ben, he gave himself, gave me all of his self, his life, in the Force, he gave it to me, as a gift, as a, through our bond, that stupid, that thing that we had, he passed it to me, all of- him,” she finishes lamely. “I wouldn’t, I _am_ a Skywalker now.”

“As your lover before you,” finishes Poe, intoning a near mirror of the heroic words of Luke Skywalker, told everywhere Resistance families raise their children.

“No,” Rey hisses, jerking her shoulder against his back. “I _told_ you, I didn’t, we _weren’t_.”

“You could have been,” offers Finn quietly, into the silence.

Rey is so glad they’re facing away from her, so they can’t see her blush. “No, we couldn’t,” she says finally, certain of that. “There was too much, too much _history_.” Every wrong thing in the universe for three generations, pressed into a bond no one could feel but the two of them, compressing them, driving Kylo to be Kylo, forcing Ben to hide and send her his love wrapped up in Kylo’s obsession and anger. There was no room there for the kind of love that grows things. Just… just warped destiny, between them, too much of it, handed down over too many years.

“You kiss him back?” asks Poe abruptly. Rey sucks in a wounded breath, shifting.

“You can’t ask her that,” interrupts Finn, spinning to glare at the other man before staring back out at the foliage on his side of the X-wing. “Poe, you can’t, that’s not _fair_ , you can’t ask her that, you’re always asking questions you shouldn’t _ask_.”

“Because that’s the only way to get answers, out of both of you, and don’t think I’ve forgotten you’ll tell Rey something you won’t tell me at our _execution_ , Finn,” spits Poe back, angry and hurt.

“Wait, what?” she asks, into the hurt silence.

“We were going to be executed, on the ship, and he was talking about this thing he wouldn’t tell me, said he’d tell you,” spits Poe. 

“You were going to be executed,” Rey repeats. “Together.” The enormous reality of that potential loss hits like the final blow of Palpatine, and she physically aches under it, rubbing her shoulders against their backs to reassure herself that they’re sitting there, together, on either side of her. They _victory hugged_ , she reminds herself.

“Didn’t happen,” Finn reassures her. “Hux was the mole.”

There is silence, and then Poe asks, “So can you tell her now? Rey, can you tell me when he tells you, or should I jump down, and like, walk five steps away, now, and let you two have secrets and stop asking questions?”

“It’s not like that,” says Finn firmly, shifting against Rey’s shoulder. She can feel his discomfort and wants to tell him she won’t press, but it’s a whole new world right now, and she promised herself they’d get to live in it. Letting them fight feels like one of those things that you do when you’re living.

“So what is it like,” presses Poe, and he sounds miserable. “Because so far today, my ex told me she’s not in love with me, and Rey says she’s maybe in love with a dead guy who kissed her, who maybe she kissed back, and I think I can stand to hear one more, I’m strong, I can take it.”

Rey opens her mouth to protest because she’s _not in love with Ben_ , she kind of _is_ Ben, who _loved her_ , and that is going to make introductions awkward for the rest of her life, she just now realizes. Just as quickly, she decides she’s keeping the last name anyway.

Finn snorts. “It’s not like that at all.”

There’s a long pause while the other two work that out, and then Rey shuffles left as Poe swings his legs up onto the X-wing and scoots closer to Finn’s right side. They prop him up for a moment, as he leans back against their bulk, and then Poe asks softly, “So what, what is it like?” 

Finn sighs. “I’m not _anybody_. I know, I know I’m a general, _now,_ and I appreciate that, I really do. But I’m not a _good_ one. Leia didn’t pick me to be a general, or a Jedi. I’m just Finn. I can’t even pilot the Falcon. A farm kid shot better than me in the gunner pit, R2 showed me the statistics, and I’ve trained for that my whole life.”

“Well, that’s not your fault,” chuckles Poe a little, “you were a stormtrooper, they can’t hit anything, you’re kind of a prodigy, to be as good as you are.”

“Ha ha,” laughs Finn bitterly, and that’s not a sound Rey associates with Finn. She puts her chin on his shoulder and asks, “So, what is the thing you can only say to me?”

There’s silence.

Poe starts to scoot back, to slip off the X-wing, and she grabs for his hand and presses it to the hull and says, “No. Stay. He was bluffing.”

Finn blows out a breath and says, “Jedi mindtricks are not fair, Rey.”

She smiles, holds Poe’s hand to the hull, and waits.

Finn takes a deep breath and says, “I love you.”

The world is full of silences as they listen to the echo of those words.

Poe opens his mouth, and Rey shakes her head at him, because he’s nervous and he’s going to say something stupid. He closes it, and leans into her a little.

“Good,” says Rey, wrapping her arms around Finn.

“Good?” asks Finn, voice coated in disbelief.

“I knew,” Poe tells him quietly. “I know it. I knew.”

“You _knew?”_ yelps Finn. “And you didn’t think to _say anything?_ We were almost _dying!”_

“I mean, I didn’t _know_ know, I just, I’ve kissed a lot of people, I can tell when they’re into me,” there’s a smile in his voice as Poe teases Finn gently. “You wear my jacket, and you let me name you.”

“Yeah, well, we let Rey name something once and now she’s a Skywalker, so I picked the best option,” says Finn, and he’s bitter again, and that won’t work, Rey decides.

“He loves you, too,” she tells Finn, and feels Finn shudder for a moment, his world coming apart at the seams.

“He loves me?” asks Finn plaintively. Rey nods, chin digging into his shoulder, and Poe says, “Yeah, kinda do. Kinda pissed you didn’t know, actually, now that I think about it. I gave you my _jacket_ , Finn. I love that jacket.”

Finn laughs, a choked sound that’s quickly cut off. He takes another breath and says, “And you, Rey?”

“Oh,” she says, trying for a light tone. “I died, and came back, and the only two people I cared about, worried about, just before I died and just after I came back were the two of you.”

“Oh,” says Finn into the heavy silence that follows her confession.

“Yeah, that’s, that’s a lot,” says Poe, after a moment. “I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet.”

“Too bad,” comments Rey mildly. “You asked.”

They sit still then, on the hood of her x-wing, until Poe squirms and says, “I’m sorry, it’s going to bug me-“

“Yes,” says Rey, her voice a little choked. “He loved me, and he was dying, for me, and he’d always loved me, there’d always been that thing between us, I’d always felt his love, I’d never been alone without it, not one day, even when he was a nightmare and our enemy and I was so scared of him, and _it_ was dying, he was giving up everything so one of us, the right one, would get to live and so _I kissed him back_ , Poe.”

Her chest is heaving but she’s not crying because she’s scowling too fiercely.

“Oh,” says Poe, slipping a cautious arm around her shoulders.

“You always push, I told you not to _ask,”_ complains Finn, leaning back, holding onto her arms where they wrap against his chest.

“Well, excuse me, but in a day or two, we’re all going to be really glad she got that out so we know how to help,” snorts Poe. 

“A day or two,” repeats Rey, disbelieving.

“Well, yeah, it usually takes you that long to really forgive me,” admits Poe, a cocky smile in his voice.

“Let’s push him off,” suggests Finn impulsively, but he makes no move to do so. Poe slides even closer, wraps an arm over Finn’s shoulder, too.

Rey snorts. “Too much work.”

“Besides, you know I’m right,” says Poe smugly.

Finn elbows him. “You’re never right.”

“Sometimes I am, _General.”_

“Yeah, that’s-“ Finn snorts, denying more than just the words, from the way he shifts uncomfortably.

“We need you,” Rey tells him. “Poe is good at fighting, defending, tactics. You’re good at saying, ‘Never again,’ and putting down your gun. Right now? We need you both, generals.”

Poe nods, leaning forward and gnawing on his jacket a little as he says, “I can’t do that part, the part where you know where to go next, how you know to give people _chances,_ Finn. You’re always giving people chances. Half the galaxy looks up to you for giving them a chance to put down their gun and say _never again_ , you know that? I see it on their faces. I can’t do that. I can’t lead people like that.”

Finn says, “It’s not leading, not, not like General Organa.”

“Hey, it’s the kind of leading that’s making it so we don’t have a First Order, more than half the Galaxy is on our side, now, following you, I’ll _take_ it,” Poe says. Rey nods. 

Finn takes a deep breath and sighs it out. “Rose always says, we win by saving the things we love.”

Poe’s arms twitch tight around them both and he says, “Then we won.”

Rey feels a thrill at that.

Finn’s voice betrays his smile as he says, “We did.”

“Can I have a kiss or something?” asks Poe. “I’ve never gone so long with so much talking about feelings, and not had a kiss or something to help ease me in.”

Finn gets there first, but that’s okay. They make a pretty picture to watch while Rey waits her turn.

Rey can feel Ben’s love, inside her, for her, feel how it still sustains her life. It feels settled, now, in a way it didn’t just a few hours ago. And she can feel her love of her generals, as she breathes in and out and waits, head tilted, for her turn to kiss one of them. It’s a better thing, a sweet and simple thing, a thing built on a hundred decisions to trust them, a thousand ways they’ve earned it. 

Eventually she rolls her eyes and taps her hand on Finn’s chest, though, and says, “My turn,” imperiously, because _c’mon_. She’s tired, she wants to get to bed eventually, they don’t have all night.

“Falcon,” gasps Poe. “Beds on the Falcon.”

Rey captures his mouth for a kiss, and it’s everything she never thought to dream of. He’s _ridiculously good_ at kissing, it’s _completely unfair._ He’s the one gasping, though, when they part, so she smiles smugly as she turns to Finn.

Finn looks over at her, his eyes wide and shocked, as she leans in, and he kisses her like she’s made of sand and too much touching will crumble her edges. She loves it, loves him, smiles into the kiss, and feels precious to him. When they part, Poe pants, “Good, okay, first kisses done, let’s, let’s jump down, go back to the Falcon.”

Finn and Rey burst into laughter, but follow Poe down off the X-Wing and into the hot night, over to where the Falcon sits, their very own hunk of junk. They’ll have to sneak by Chewie, but he won’t mind, not really, not even if they wake him up with all the touching and laughing they’re doing.

Rey feels tired, still, but it’s a good kind, a kind that says only that it’s been a long day, a long week, a long _life_. As they slide into the biggest of the bunks, laughing and touching, she smiles at her generals and wonders what kind of galaxy they’ll build between them, what kind of adventures are next. She thinks of all those millions of stars, and smiles. She saved the things she loved, and what happens after is apparently getting to tell them she loves them, over and over and over, just to watch their eyes go supernova for her words, brighter than any star she’s ever seen anywhere out there in the wide universe. It’s a good start, the best start, on this new lifetime she gets to live, Ben’s last gift to her, and she doesn’t mean to waste one minute more.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to beta for me, you have to email me. If you want to criticize me, you have to compliment me, 1:1 ratio, unless you're a beta and then it's much more of a 20/80 ratio. It's a thing, I'm new and my feels are so sensitive right now.
> 
> If you want more, you have to speak up and ask for it. I'M NOT A MIND READER.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
